I don’t know about you, but I have given up going to noisy restaurants. You know the type I mean. They’re the ones where you can barely hear what the person who’s sitting alongside you is saying, much less whoever happens to be sitting across the table.

Just before we went to press Sony announced that it was discontinuing production of its Walkman cassette player in the same week that Panasonic said it would no longer make its Technics SL-1200 direct-drive turntable. One of these iconic audio products disappearing would be hard enough, but two in one week? The shock, the horror!

The Pedestrian Council of Australia wants the government to force manufacturers of headphones, portable music players and mobile phones to include warnings with their products of the risks consumers could run by using earphones.

Don’t miss this special issue celebrating Australian Hi-Fi’s 50th year of publication, with a feature written by the magazine’s founder. The very first issue is now a collector’s item, and we think this 50th Anniversary issue will be too! Also full reviews of JBL’s L100 Classic speakers, B&W’s top-level DB1D subwoofer, Cambnridge Audio’s Azure 851N network player, and Gold Note’s IS-1000 amplifier, and all our regulars!